Irony and satire are prominent themes throughout Anthony Burgess’s

Irony and satire are bring outstanding themes throughout Anthony bourgeoiss A Clock cut back Orange, Virginia Woolfs To the radio beacon and Joyce Carys The Horses Mouth. Burgesss novel satirizes the founding as Burgess viewed it in the mid to late 16th century. It was a macrocosm in which individuality copped out to societal norms. Wolf attempts to illustrate the jeering of the tenuous connection between the age of reason and the modernization in her work To the Lighthouse which was published in 1984. Like Woolf and Burgess, Cary too takes an completely satirical go about to the early twentieth century in his work The Horses Mouth.Each work published at different junctures in the twentieth century offers unique parodies of the times and the direction each germ saw society following. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess Irony, is peradventure the cornerstone of A Clockwork Orange. It is most frequently demonstrated through Alex who earlier to his government mandated trea tment repeatedly refers to craze as a issue of beauty. For example, after hitting Dim Alex goes on to note that his victim is notification blood to curb up for his vulgarity. (Burgess, 28) In an otherwise example of irony, forward to his treatment, Alex looks upon those things that most people deem desirable such(prenominal) as religion, breeding and reason as purely undesirable. In other words, Alex look ons things in lapse until the government reforms him. After his treatment he adapts an entirely passive lookout man manifested by the following excerpt And what, brother, I had to escape into sleep from whence was the horrible and wrong feeling that it was better to get the hit than go through it. If the veck had stayed I top executive even have like presented the other cheek. (Burgess, 121) This piece in Alexs attitude toward violence comes as a resultant role of a rigorous two week treatment in which Alex season incarcerated for crimes of violence is injected with a drug. The drug makes Alex ill and during the effects he is labored to watch tapes containing excessive violence. The technique known as associative larn forces Alex to bring into being ill at the thought of violence. Ironic onlyy, following the treatment, Alex who was an ardent relay link of classical music cannot stand to listen to classical music since he associates it with violence.Irony and satire is further illustrated by the name attached to a cottage where Alex and his gang members, called droogs, entered and committed crimes of rape and assault. This was prior to Alexs arrest, incarceration and eventual(prenominal) associative learning treatment. The cottage is named family and Alex describes it as a gloopy discriminate of name. (Burgess, 19) The word home is associated with comfort and safety and naturally an escape from the testy out-of-door world. At Home, Alex and his droogs turn the concept around by trouncing the man of the house and raping the mistress.Iro nically the master had written a manuscript in protest against the treatment that the government used to reform Alex. While at Home committing violent crimes, Alex burnt the manuscript which is the very thing that might have spared him the treatment that he received in prison. In the concluding analysis, the government, by brainwashing Alex for the collective good of society had ironically take down him. This dehumanizing took the form of robbing Alex of escaped will and muster out choice.He had not elected to terminate from violence he had been programmed to do so and as such was no more than an animal or a thing. The greatest irony of all is that the very violence that Alex perpetrated had been regarded as non-human. His treatment did no more than exterminate his desire for violence leaving no less human than originally his treatment. Burgess A Clockwork Orange therefore offers a satirical indictment of modern blastes to order in society. Virginia Woolfs To the Lighthouse Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey represent the wisecrack between realism and modernity with an ironic undertone.While Mr. Ramsey is apt to rely upon his savvy and Mrs. Ramsey relies on her emotion, both characters are keenly aware that their existence is deeply transient. For instance Mrs. Ramsey is weighed by concurrent thoughts of her sons growth and the inevitable dangers in the outside world. Mr. Ramsey is constantly obsessing over his inevitable demise. In many ways this approach to modern day chaos is reflected in Burgesss A Clockwork Orange. Mans attempt to modernize and grow threatens the very fondness of kindness.In A Clockwork Orange the dehumanizing impact of technological progress was epitomized through Burgesss Alex. Woolfs approach is slightly different but is so far satirical. Despite the advances in applied science humanity is characterized by its flaws. A perfect society is impossible disdain the perfection offered by modernity. Woolf highlights this satirical approach i n a scene where Mr. Ramsey is observing Mrs. Ramsey and crowd together, (their son) through a window as he strolls through the lane. Woolf writes the followingWho shall blame him? Who will not secretly rejoice when the hero puts his armour off, and halts by the window and gazes at his wife and son, who, very distant at first, gradually come encompassing(prenominal) and closer, till lips and book and top are clearly before him, though still lovely and unfamiliar from the intensity of his isolation and the waste of ages and the perishing of the stars, and lastly putting his pipe in his pocket and bending his magnificent head before herwho will blame him if he does homage to the beauty of the world? (Woolf, Ch. VI) Obviously, Woolf is demonstrating that humanity is flawed and no amount of science can obstruct the inevitability of mortality. For Burgess humanity is endlessly flawed by free choice and no amount of scientific procedure can turn that flaw without substituting one pro blem with perhaps a large problem. For instance the treatment given to Alex only robbed him of human traits while attempting to make him more human by eliminating his desire to commit acts of violence.While Burgess uses Home as a symbol of irony in that it typifies a dwelling house of order and peace yet becomes a place of great violence and upheaval, Woolf takes a more traditional approach. At her dinner party, Mrs. Ramsey poignantly observes that despite the outside chaos and the turmoil of the outside world there is more or less peace at home. Reflecting on the dinner party Woolf write It partook . . . of eternity . . .there is a coherence in things, a stability something, she meant, is immune from change, and shines out (she glanced at the window with its ripple of reflected lights) in the face of the flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby so that again tonight she had the feeling she had had once today, already, of peace, of rest. Of such moments, she thought, the thing is made that endures. (Woolf, Chapter XVII) Although this aspect of the home can be distinguish from Burgesss satirical approach to the home the message is notwithstanding vastly similar. Certain elements of humanity cannot be usurped by modern technology.As forward-looking as the sciences may become, human temperament remains sacred and essential for a cohesive society. As collective as society has become at the heart of society there are individuals with human desires, the hub that successfully turns the wheel of humanity. As Mrs. Ramsey observes, some things cannot change and that is human temper. For Alex, human nature required free choice. For Mrs. Ramsey human nature required peace and rest. Ironically, free choice, peace and rest are all compromised in Burgesss A Clockwork Orange and Woolfs To the Lighthouse.For Burgesss A Clockwork Orange, humanity was threatened by modern technology as evidenced by Alexs treatment. For Woolf, humanity was likewise threatened by modern technology at a time when the world was at war and the industrial revolution was in full swing. The Lighthouse in Woolfs To the Lighthouse can be compared to the Home in Burgesss A Clockwork Orange in that they both represent the irony of contradictory nature of things. As previously observed the Home, traditionally a place of repair became the scene of heinous crimes in A Clockwork Orange. A similar, yet not so dramatic contradiction and irony surrounds Woolfs Lighthouse.For instance, James observes as the Ramseys boat approaches the Lighthouse The Lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tugboat with a yellow eye, that opened suddenly, and softly in the evening. Now James looked at the Lighthouse. He could see the white-washed rocks the tower, stark and straight he could see that it was barred with black and white he could see windows in it he could even see washing spread on the rocks to dry. So that was the Lighthouse, was it? No, the other was also the Lighthouse. For nothing was simply one thing. The other Lighthouse was consecutive too. (Woolf, Chapter VIII)